Pink Lips (6 page)

“Sure.” She pulled out a small mirror and her lipstick that was hidden in a golden-colored tube.

Willow smiled as she felt the creamy substance rub all around her lips. The tingling sensation made her face feel funny, but her eagerness was undeniable through her smile. Mahina coated her lips perfectly as she put the golden tube back in her compact.

“I look pretty.” Willow blushed as she looked at herself in the small black mirror that Mahina held in front of her face.

“Yes, you do,” Mahina agreed sincerely, “just like your mother.”

“Really?” Willow questioned as her eyes grew big with excitement.

“Yes.” Mahina started to wipe the lipstick off with her thumbs. “I need you to promise me something, Willow.”

“Okay.” Willow looked into her aunt's eyes.

“Promise me you will never trust anyone,” she said as she grabbed her chin.

“What about Mommy?”

Mahina shook her head no.

“Kail?” Willow asked.

“Sisters do backstabbing shit, too.” Mahina grabbed Willow's hand, releasing her chin while leading her to bed.

“What about you?”

“Never trust me.” Mahina tucked her under the sheets.

“I guess it's a good thing that I don't.” Willow scooted her body down into the sheets.

“It's a damn good thing,” Mahina agreed as she walked toward the door. “Oh, and Willow,” Mahina stuck her head back through the door, “remember that you would rather have four quarters than one hundred pennies.” She smiled and walked away. “Less is more sometimes.”

Willow sat in the bed wondering, letting what her aunt had told her play into her mind. She didn't understand what she meant. Her eight-year-old mind couldn't process the message and wisdom behind those words. One day it would all make sense to her. But Willow would be the type that would have rather had a whole dollar bill, and she would soon realize that you only have yourself in this world.

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present

T
he luminous full moon glowed in the midnight sky as the two women began their sparring boxing on the rooftop of their exquisite condo that overlooked the beautiful city of Honolulu. They stood there in boy shorts, a tank top, and a pair of Giuseppe heels with their hands out in front of them forming fists. Both as beautiful as sin, each waited to catch the other one off-guard.

Willow, twenty-two, decked a twenty-one-year-old Kail in the eye, resulting in a grotesque squelching noise making her eye immediately water.

“Pay attention,” Willow yelled.

Kail shrieked in pain, grasping the gaping wound where her eye was, and in a frenzy, she grabbed Willow's arm. Willow moaned in agony as Kail twisted it 360 degrees with sickening cracking noises.

“You have to do better than that, baby sis.” Willow panted as she released herself from Kail's grip by punching her rib cage.

With her left arm, Kail pulled a revolver out of her cleavage. She pointed it at Willow in frustration. She had never won one of the sparring matches with her big sister, and it made her mad. Kail raised her tank top exposing the medium-sized red circle from where Willow's fist had landed.

As Kail paid attention to her wound, Willow seized the opportunity,
diving forward and pinning her to the ground, making the gun fly in the opposite direction. Kail wasn't going down so easily, and in a fit of hulk-like rage, she punched Willow's face until they both sat there going blow for blow.

Kail nearly passed out from the pain, but instead grabbed Willow and head-butted her off of her. Willow was sweating fire and salt that soaked her shirt at the crevice of her breasts, and told her sister, “You better make your hands a weapon, Kail.” Kail stared in the eyes of Willow, watching for the moment she'd second-guess herself, watching for her moment of godliness.

There, in that moment, Kail's eyes faltered. It was maybe less than one second, but she was an animal now. Things were slowed down like she was a cheetah and Willow was a gazelle that'd lost its footing.

Kail swung her fist. Flesh met flesh; Willow stumbled, and fell like a drunken transient before God himself, confused and unaware. Willow struggled to her feet, as she started to smile. She took the rubber band around her wrist and tied up her auburn-colored hair in a messy ponytail.

“That's what the fuck I'm talking about,” Willow said as she tossed a rubber band to Kail to tie her hair up for round two.

Willow closed her eyes as the night air became therapeutic to her. She smiled at how easy their life had become. Filling the shoes of their mother and their aunt, she and Kail were now members of The Pink Lip Bandits. With unlimited money at their disposal, they never knew the meaning of the word
struggle
and could buy whatever their hearts desired.

Raised by their Aunt Mahina, and her soon-to-be husband, Gino, they had learned the ways of the streets before they were ten. Instead of getting an allowance like normal kids their age growing
up, they had to earn it. No matter if it was stealing, drugs, or whatever crooked things Gino asked them to do, they did it without asking questions.

Willow became the brains of The Pink Lip Bandits and Kail became the force. As their deadly combination grew more and more, the money and control they had in the streets grew. Letting their beauty be mistaken for weakness was a price a lot of hustlers paid.

Willow's and Kail's names became feared on the islands of Hawaii. They were everything their reputation said they were plus more. People knew if they saw them coming, to go the other way. Wherever you saw the two together, their lips as pink as taffy, you knew they were there on business, and any business done by them ended badly.

Although Mahina filled in for their mother—they'd always wondered what happened to her—she never instilled feelings or emotions in them. She trained them to be cold. She raised them to be the perfect soldiers for the organization and it paid off. Although there were more than twenty girls in The Pink Lip Bandits, Willow and Kail were the only two who mattered to Mahina and Gino. They were making more money than the other girls put together.

“I'm about to beat your ass now,” Willow called as she held her fist out in front of her.

“Wait.” Kail's cell phone started ringing. She walked over to the railings of the rooftop and grabbed her phone. “It's Mahina,” she called.

“Answer it,” Willow walked closer, “she's probably making sure we are there on time tomorrow for their damn wedding.” She shook her head as she sat on the railing.

“That better be all.” Kail hit the answer button. “ 'Cause I ain't down with working tonight. Hello.”

“What is she saying?” Willow put her ear close to the phone.

“I think she called me by mistake.” Kail looked at Anoki as a familiar voice caught their interest.

“Do yous think they gon' try to overpower us?” Gino's voice came booming through the receiver of the phone.

Willow put her finger up to Kail's mouth, telling her sister to be quiet as she hit the speaker phone button.

“I don't know,” Mahina said. “But, if they do, we can just take care of them like we did Anoki.”

“Could you kill them like you killed your sister?” Gino asked in a malicious tone.

“In a minute,” Mahina replied as static started to take over the call. “It's bad enough that their father took over the mafia and we have to listen to him regarding the drug cartel here.” She spat. “If those little bitches ever got from under my control, I'd kill them.”

“But they make us so much money.”

“They are just common bitches from the streets of Philadelphia. We could always find two more bitches like them.”

“You're right,” Gino agreed as they laughed.

Kail threw the phone over the rooftop in anger. She sat silently, hunched over and with a sense of loss so powerful that her muscles wouldn't respond to commands. Her gaze was into the far distance, unseeing but fixed on some imaginary future of a life with her mother. Although it was naïve, she had figured her mother had left at will and would return someday.

Willow wasn't as naïve; she had grieved for the loss of her mother when she was a little girl. She knew deep down that she was dead. The story that Mahina had always told them about their mother leaving to go find herself didn't make sense to her. Her mother
had been taken from the world a long time ago, but she'd never suspected Mahina.

Kail's throat tightened and a short intake of breath forecast the explosion of emotion, which to date, she had managed to keep buried deep inside. Not any more though, that image of things shared with a love which were not to come, was too powerful and gut-wrenching to be kept in check; the tearing at her soul was too compelling and energetic to be contained. The vision she had began to swim in front of her as tears welled from deep inside and coursed down her cheeks.

All the pent-up hysteria and dread of loss was let loose in a paroxysm of choking and sobbing, so powerful in its intensity that it shook her body until she could barely breathe.

“I want that bitch dead,” Kail said, her voice shaking.

“I know, but calm down.” Willow grabbed her sister's shoulder. “I feel the same way. How about we give that bitch a wedding she will never forget?”

“I'm down,” Kail agreed as she bit her bottom lip.

They both sat there under the moon thinking of a master plan for revenge. Their lips shined with pink essence as they put together a plan that would end The Pink Lip Bandits for good. They would leave traces of no one affiliated with the organization. The wedding of Mahina and Gino would be a bloodbath like Hawaii had never seen.

•  •  •

“Ms. Melee Evans?” the stout limo driver screamed, holding up a big sign with her name neatly written on it.

“That's me,” a woman called out as she handed him her designer luggage.

Melee waited for the limo driver to put the luggage in the back,
and open the door for her as her light-caramel skin tone glistened under the Hawaiian sun. Her hazel-brown eyes hid behind her Fendi sunglasses. The lengthy beige Alexander McQueen dress that fitted her body perfectly split up the side showing off her beautiful toned legs. A small breeze made her long, straight hair blow softly as the scent from the peppermint shampoo she used mixed with the natural smells of the island.

She was the kind of woman that gay men went straight for; the kind who could make a man run into walls staring at her as she walked by. The type who you have to take an extra breath between sentences while talking to her. A gaze at her face and you could get lost in a daydream. There was a beauty as pure and captivating as this and she was it.

“Have you been to the islands before?” the limo driver asked as he held the door open.

“Please don't speak to me,” Melee said as she gracefully entered the limo like she had done it a thousand times. “An acquaintance is with me so we will wait for him. He went to the bathroom.”

“Yes, ma'am,” the limo driver said as he softly closed the door. “What a bitch,” he mumbled under his breath.

The limo door opened and Melee slid over to let her travel partner inside of the limo. Craig Price entered the limo as his tapered faded head scuffed the top cloth of the seat. With skin that was nearly blue, he was the darkest man most people had ever seen in their life. His Evasion sunglasses hid his dark-colored eyes. The opened white Gucci shirt and shorts to match complemented the white loafers that made a home to his feet. He was handsome and his swag attracted every woman he passed.

“Didn't I tell yo' ass to wait by the restroom?” he barked, the pearly white teeth in his mouth appearing and disappearing.

Melee ignored his rant as she gazed out of the window at the gorgeous sites.

“You think this shit is a game, but if something happens to you, then yo' pops would kill me,” he said.

“That sounds like a personal problem.” Melee checked her cell phone. “All I'm here for is to attend my uncle's wedding, stand in for my family, and that's it. Just chill the fuck out and we'll be back in Philly before you know it.”

“You try telling that to Rock.” Craig grabbed her cell phone. “He doesn't have any understanding behind his baby girl. So look, I don't give a fuck what you here for. I was asked to watch you so, that's what the fuck I'm gon' do. So where you go, I go. You got that?”

“Yes, goddammit,” Melee huffed as she snatched her cell phone back.

“Where to?” the limo driver asked as the window in the middle console let down.

“The Halekulani Hotel on Kalia Road,” Craig yelled.

“I'll get us there fast.” The limo driver nodded as he rolled the window up.

Melee leaned against the door of the limo with her chin resting on the palm of her hand. She felt like a kid with a babysitter. She was in this beautiful place and couldn't even enjoy it due to having a constant shadow. She loved her father, but she longed for the day to do things on her own. She felt like she couldn't even go to the restroom by herself. She was tired of being chaperoned.

•  •  •

Willow and Kail prepped in the presidential suite with the rest of the bridesmaids as they got ready for the two o'clock English
Garden wedding. They stayed calm as they looked at each other, and then out of the window of the Halekulani knowing that it would be their last day in Hawaii. Willow had bought the two first-class tickets, and their plane would leave at the stroke of midnight. There was no turning back now.

“I'm so nervous.” Mahina looked at herself in the mirror; the makeup artist she hired painting her face.

“You'll do fine.” Willow rubbed her back and looked at Kail for backup, but she simply stood on the balcony of the oversized suite.